NATION IN BRIEF

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. -- People can stroll along Michigan's 3,200 miles of Great Lakes beaches whether lakefront property owners like it or not, the state Supreme Court ruled.

The court on Friday unanimously sided with Joan M. Glass, who sued her neighbors over access to the Lake Huron waterfront. The neighbors said she was trespassing.

The justices disagreed over the appropriate boundary of the public area, but a five-member majority held that the public can wander anywhere between the water's edge and the ordinary high water mark. The decision overturned an appeals court ruling that the state owns that land -- but that owners of adjacent property have exclusive use of it and can kick others out.

Africanized Bees Found

In N.W. Louisiana Town

BATON ROUGE, La. -- Nearly 30 years after a TV movie showed the Superdome saving New Orleans from "killer bees," Louisiana has joined other southern-tier states with confirmed sightings of the aggressive insects. Bees trapped in June near the northwest Louisiana town of Rodessa were confirmed as the Africanized variety Friday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's bee research center, a state official said.

The insects are considerably less dangerous than thought in 1976, when "The Savage Bees" first aired. In the movie, the city is saved from a swam of bees when the insects are driven into the Superdome, where air conditioning renders them motionless.

* VALHALLA, N.Y. -- A year after surgeons separated twins Carl and Clarence Aguirre, who were joined at the top of their heads, the 3-year-old boys are developing without significant complications. Clarence is about to take his first steps, and therapists say Carl will soon follow.

* PORT ALLEN, La. -- A jury awarded a symbolic $8 million in damages for the beating death of Mya George, 3, the bulk of it from a "grossly negligent" state social service department. Mya was beaten to death in 2003 by her step-grandfather, who is serving life in prison for murder. The jury found the Louisiana Department of Social Services bears 75 percent of the blame, while the step-grandfather bears 5 percent and her mother 20 percent.

* NEW YORK -- A federal judge considering whether the government should be forced to reveal the identities of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detainees suggested Friday that each one be asked whether he wants his name made public. U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff offered the idea as he considered the government's position that it must hide the identities to protect detainees and their relatives from potential reprisals.